


Those Who Wander

by Kriseis



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen, Post - A Dance With Dragons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 13:48:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1107592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kriseis/pseuds/Kriseis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A man searches for a ship and a girl begins to remember.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Those Who Wander

**Author's Note:**

> For emynithilien at the got exchange on LiveJournal.  
> Prompt: Get one of these pairs of characters to meet up/interact post ADWD (or at another time during canon if it’s more interesting): [...] Davos and Arya [...] Feel free to do any amount of handwaving necessary to get the characters in the vicinity of each other.  
> When I started to write this, I had planned for it to be much longer and with a more overarching plot (I felt ambitious and wanted to have more of the listed characters meet), but it simply got too long and I realized I didn't have enough time or space to do everything I wanted in this, so I cut out the parts with Davos and Arya and edited them to make it flow better. I still have the other parts, though, and I'm still writing, so if inspiration persists, that may evolve into my first multichapter fic.

She’s been watching the man for two weeks now. He spends most of his time by the docks, speaking to the captains of the ships that arrived that day. She hasn’t gotten close enough to listen in, but these conversations always seem to end with the captains laughing and walking away.  
When he’s spoken to all the captains, he turns to their crews. This is easier to listen in on, and she’s surprised to find that he asks them of Westeros, and of the Wall. They never have much to tell him, though, and she’s lying to herself if she pretends she isn’t just as frustrated as he is by the vague answers.  
His clothes are filthy, and she isn’t sure where he’s been staying, who he is, or where he’s going. And, though she’s already collected her three things to tell the kindly man come the new moon, she wants to learn this secret for some reason she can’t quite explain to herself. And so, at last, she speaks to him.  
One day, after he’s been laughed away by some wiry trader, she taps him on the shoulder. Perhaps he’s already fallen victim to the city’s pickpockets, for even as he turns, he holds his purse close.  
“What do you want?” She won’t begrudge him his testiness; he’s clearly been frustrated in his efforts yet again. But what exactly _are_ those efforts?  
She won’t try to trick him into telling her what she wants to know; somehow, she is sure he wouldn’t fall for it. She may as well ask him outright. “Where are you trying to go?”  
He regards her carefully for a moment, and she stares right back.  
“Why do you want to know?”  
“I like to know things.”  
Well, he can hardly fault her there. And, though it may be against his better judgement, from what he’s learned of Braavos, he tells her.  
“I’m trying to find a ship that will take me to the castle of Eastwatch, on the Wall. As you might imagine, nobody’s exactly been-”  
But even as he tries to elaborate, he realizes that the girl is gone.

* * *

 

She knows exactly why nobody will take him to the Wall. She’s known for some time now, and has tried to forget it, because it’s a little too close to that dead girl she once knew, but it’s always been there.  
Some time ago, rumors began to sweep the city of things awakening in the north of Westeros. Dark things. _Cold_ things. Some shivered when they heard the stories, but some shook them off, laughing. (The laughter has always seemed a little empty, a little fearful, to the girl in the shadows.) She knew in her bones that the tales were true.  
She never brought them to the kindly man.  
But she listened. Nobody seemed to agree on anything for sure except that the Others have risen and are marching on the Wall.  
And now this strange soldier wants to go there himself. She knows he won’t have much luck. No ship has set sail for Eastwatch in months.  
Even now, as she hurries away from the stranger, she passes two Westerosi men discussing this very topic. “It would be alright if there were a Stark back in Winterfell,” one is saying, and she slows to listen despite herself.  
“I thought that Bolton bastard married the youngest girl?”  
She clenches a fist. That particular secret came to Braavos on a trader’s ship out of White Harbor. When she’d heard, she’d nearly forgotten herself.  
 _Remembered_ , whispers that voice in the back of her mind that she always tries to ignore. _You nearly remembered yourself._  
The other man is replying. “Well, yes, but it’s the Bastard who’s ruling. Ned’s girl can’t be the Stark in Winterfell if Winterfell isn’t even hers. Maybe if they hadn’t made her marry Snow...”  
The second man still seems doubtful. “I don’t know that a lord would make all that much difference.”  
His friend shakes his head. “That’s cause you weren’t raised in the North. The Boltons won’t take the threat seriously, but the Starks have backed up the Watch for thousands of years. They could go to defend the Wall with all the strength of the north behind them. It’s only ever been the Starks who could raise the whole north, Robett. Without a Stark, I fear there is little hope for the Watch.”  
She has to bite her tongue and move past them to stop the words that sprang to her lips. _They aren’t without a Stark._

* * *

 

The girl finds him again a week later. Lord Manderly supplied him with plenty of coin, but after so many months it’s beginning to run out, and when he does find a ship willing to take him to Eastwatch, he’ll need to be able to pay. He still needs to eat, though, so he sits on the dock with a makeshift pole, halfheartedly hoping and not really believing that a fish might bite. That’s where she approaches him.  
He hears a clearing of the throat, and looks up to find that she has joined him uninvited, sitting crosslegged beside him with a basket in her lap.  
“You know, there are better ways to get food.”  
He isn’t quite sure what to make of her, really. She’s can’t be more than four-and-ten, maybe less, and yet she wanders the docks alone, approaching strangers and speaking the Common Tongue far better than any native-born Braavosi he’s spoken with so far. And then there’s the strange interest she’s taken in him.  
Instead of acknowledging her... is it advice? She really just sounds a bit amused, but he doesn’t think that’s why she’s sought him out again. “What is it you want with me, girl?”  
“Cat. I’m called Cat. And I want to know why you’re trying to get to the Wall.”  
“And why should I tell you my business, Cat?”  
In response, she reaches into her basket and withdraws a handful of cockles.  
He has to laugh as he reaches out to take one. “Fair enough.”  
She waits patiently as he eats several of the cockles. When his hunger has sufficiently abated, he tells her what she wants to know.

* * *

 

“My name is Ser Davos Seaworth,” the man tells her. “and last I heard, I was Hand of the King to Stannis Baratheon, though, as many believe me dead, I may have been replaced. I was sent by my king to try to win White Harbor to our cause. The Manderlys promised to swear fealty if I managed to retrieve Rickon Stark-”  
“ _Rickon?_ ” she blurts, unable to contain herself. “Rickon died! Him and Bran, Theon-”  
The knight is watching her carefully, and she realizes too late that she’s speaking as though familiar with the people she names. Still, he answers her. “Yes, it was believed that Rickon Stark and his older brother were killed by Theon Greyjoy,” he says, “but a squire who escaped the burning of Winterfell told Lord Manderly that the boys were still alive and had escaped. Manderly sent me to find Rickon, who was believed to be on Skagos. It took me a long time, but I managed to find him and smuggle him and the wolf back to White Harbor.”  
Her mind is reeling. _Rickon alive. And maybe Bran, too..._ She barely manages to remind herself that she does not know these boys, that she is no one, and has no brothers.  
Davos is still speaking. “Manderly put me on a ship here and gave me coin to pay for passage to Eastwatch, from which I mean to ride to Castle Black and rejoin the king’s army... Only I’ve found that nobody is willing to sail anywhere near the Wall.”  
She nods a little, and, knowing that his story is over, stands to leave. She gives him a few more cockles from her basket, then returns the rest to Brusco.  
For the first time in months, she dreams of wolves.


End file.
